COMPANY NEWS

COMPANY NEWS; Electric-Car Venture Adds Honeywell

By GLENN RIFKIN

Published: March 11, 1993

A start-up company hoping to provide a nonbattery source of power for electric cars has found a big, established partner: Honeywell Inc.

American Flywheel Systems, which is based in Bellevue, Wash., and is known as A.F.S., has a patent for an electromechanical device that the company says can last up to six times as long between rechargings as conventional batteries that use chemicals. The concept has intrigued people in the automotive and academic communities, but until there is a working prototype, skeptics abound.

A.F.S. had been looking for a partner to manufacture the device, and first approached American auto makers, which rebuffed the company. But A.F.S. has now reached an agreement with Honeywell, of Minneapolis, in which the electronics manufacturer would build a working model of the product within two years.

A.F.S. will pay Honeywell between $5 million and $10 million, with Honeywell retaining the right to use the new technology for its own applications on spacecraft. Honeywell has no interest in entering the electric-car business, a company spokesman said. Flywheel Technology

A.F.S.'s device is powered by a flywheel that uses magnets to create electricity. The flywheel is set spinning by a standard household electrical current, and, once it has been sufficiently charged, can continue spinning for an extended period.

The electricity generated by the flywheel would power a car's electric motor. A.F.S. says that a feasibility study indicated an electric car would be capable of traveling 300 to 600 miles on a single charge, compared with the 80-to-100-mile range of a conventional battery.

In building the protoype, Honeywell will apply technology -- such as power controls, magnetic bearing systems and vacuum containers -- that its Satellite Systems unit devised for the space program.

"We see the A.F.S. program as a prime opportunity to use our unique technologies and scientific capabilities to participate in the solution of critical global concerns," Michael Bonsignore, Honeywell's chairman and chief executive, said. He added that if successful, the project could generate substantial business potential in Honeywell's commercial and government sectors.